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This dissertation investigates the possible implications of incommensurability of values for practical reason and distributive justice. Under certain conditions incommensurability of values causes incomplete comparability' of options.

Moral philosophers have long debated whether moral utterances can be objectively true or false (or objectively valid or appropriate). Many legal philosophers have also participated in this debate (which I shall call 'the meta-ethical debate'). Recently, however, there has been a trend among legal philosophers - led by Ronald Dworkin and Jeremy Waldron - towards regarding the meta-ethical debate as irrelevant to the adjudication of legal disputes (and possibly to legal practice and theory more generally). This thesis explores the reasons underlying this trend, and argues that the trend is misguided. After outlining several versions of objectivism and anti-objectivism, and arguing that there is a genuine debate between these positions, I seek to establish the relevance of those positions to adjudication in two ways. Firstly, I consider the arguments offered by Dworkin and Waldron to show that the truth or falsity of moral objectivism is irrelevant to adjudication. I seek to show that both Dworkin's and Waldron's arguments fail to establish the irrelevance of the meta-ethical debate. Secondly, I seek to trace the implications of the meta-ethical debate for a particular issue relevant to adjudication - namely, the legitimacy of judicial review. I argue that, while both objectivists and anti-objectivists can regard judicial review as legitimate, one's meta-ethical position should affect one's attitude towards judicial review in a variety of sometimes subtle ways. I conclude that the truth or falsity of moral objectivism does have implications for adjudication, although those implications are not as great as has been suggested by some opponents of the trend towards regarding the meta-ethical debate as irrelevant to adjudication. In doing so, I seek to tread a middle path between the two most popular views of the relationship between the meta-ethical debate and adjudication - that the former is either irrelevant to the latter or else has radical implications for it.

More and more the language of healing justice is being used to point away from state-oriented justice and towards some kind of alternative. However, very little research explores the nature of healing justice. What is healing justice? Who practices it? What does it look like? What kinds of relationships are needed so sustain a more healing orientation to justice? This thesis explores these questions through comparative case studies of three traditional communities which have, or are said to have, a practice of healing justice: Hollow Water, an Aboriginal community in Canada; the Iona Community, a Christian community in Scotland; and Plum Village, a Vietnamese-inspired Buddhist community in Southern France (which is home to the world-renowned Buddhist peacebuilder Thich Nhat Hanh). Through field research conducted in partnership with these communities, I have searched for the kind of social, structural and spiritual relationships that are necessary to sustain a healing view of justice. Through comparative analysis I have found common patterns, themes, and imagination which these communities share. These commonalities among those that practice healing justice are then examined for their implications for wider society, particularly for restorative justice and criminal justice. The findings of this research are groundbreaking for the fields of restorative justice and criminal justice. In this first international comparative study on healing justice, the research concludes that healing justice does exist as a phenomenon across three communities which differ in etbnicity, religion, language and geography. The major features of what sustains a healing way of justice, according to this study, are having particular relationships with the Earth, the Spirit, the collective, and with those who are suffering. Furthermore, healing justice is sustained by a consistence between the means and ends of healing justice and by using harms as an opportunity to unfold a healing justice paradigm.

This study aims to establish what level of development has the Principle of Legality reached in national jurisdictions as well as in international law. The study analyses the developments and treatment of the Principle of Legality in international criminal law by means of an analysis of several national jurisdictions and international law; in Scotland, England, the United States, Mexico and South Africa. After this, the deduction of the rules of Legality were identified and compared with international developments in international human rights law and international criminal law was made and conclusions formulated. The various legal systems represent different ways of considering the Principle of Legality, taking into account the general aspects of retroactivity, strict construction and foreseeability as guidelines for this study. Therefore, it was not possible to extract a general understanding of the Principle of Legality, and even the consideration of minimum standards was a complex task. Despite these obstacles some conclusions could be reached regarding the evolution of the Principle of Legality in international criminal law. The Principle of Legality seems to be in a very early state of development in international criminal law. There seem to be some basic rules that are recognised in treaties, but the courts and the drafters of criminal definitions have not given the Principle the same scope at domestic legislatures and courts. However, the Rome Statute seems to provide for a system where the Principle of Legality could be respected, since its text gives the broadest scope of any treaty so far. However, for now there is still a lot of work to be done, if we aspire to create a respectful system of international criminal law, since the existing rules do not comply with the expected minimum standards.

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Le droit de propriété est le fondement du système social occidental tant au niveau juridique qu'au niveau idéologique. Pourtant, la vénération de ce droit implique l'existence de la pensée binaire qui engendre une concurrence (pour ne pas dire confrontation) permanente : privé-public, individualisme-collectivisme, moi-autrui. C'est ainsi qu’il est difficile de comprendre l'existence d'une pensée sinisée dans laquelle la notion du droit de propriété fait défaut. Quand les règles du droit deviennent un support des règles du rite alors que le but du droit ne consiste plus en la recherche de la justice mais de l'harmonie, un autre mode de pensée est dès lors apparu. Ce mode de pensée, négligé pendant longtemps par les théoriciens attire néanmoins de plus en plus l’attention aujourd'hui. Mais en quoi consiste-t-il ? Quels effet pourrait-il donner au droit de propriété? Est-il possible de l'articuler avec la pensée binaire dans le domaine juridique ? Cette thèse essaye de traiter ces questions dans l’approche du droit comparé. / The property law is the foundation of Western social system both at the legal level and at the ideological level. However, the veneration of this category of law implies the existence of binary theories creating permanent competition (if not using the word "confrontation") : Private-public, individualism-collectivism, me-others... Thus, it is difficult to understand the existence of a Sinitic thought in which the concept of property is lacking. That is why when the regulation of law become a carrier of the rules of the rite, while the purpose of the law is no longer the pursuit of justice but of harmony, another way of thinking has therefore appeared. This way of thinking, long neglected by theorists, nevertheless attracts more and more attention today : But what does it consist of ? What effects it could give to the property rights ? Is it possible to articulate with binary thinking in the legal field ? This thesis attempts to address these issues in the approach of comparative law.